Our Vision

To bring every person suffering from a mental health condition the right treatment for them, right away.

Who we are

Alto Neuroscience is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a mission to redefine neuropsychiatric care by leveraging neurobiology to develop personalized and highly effective treatment options. Through our AI-enabled biomarker platform, we combine rich sources of information on patients’ brain activity and behavior to better identify which patients are more likely to respond to our novel product candidates. We aim to disrupt today's trial-and-error clinical approach by matching patients to the Alto product candidates most likely to elicit a response, redefining psychiatry at a time when the world needs it most.

Our Story

Founded Out of an Immense Need for Innovation

Alto was founded in 2019 by Amit Etkin, MD, PhD. As a Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford, Dr. Etkin was dismayed by the lack of innovation in the treatment of mental health conditions across decades. Psychiatry to this day still operates through a trial-and-error approach. Medications are prescribed based on clinical observations and patients cycle through therapies, hoping eventually one will work. This process can take time, and time has consequences: The longer it takes to find a solution, the greater the personal suffering and more likely an individual is to give up on the process altogether.

Trial and Error Due to Error in the Trials

The root of this problem: People respond to the same drugs in different ways, yet drugs for these conditions have been developed with limited attention to this central challenge. In essence, trial and error is due to an error in the trials themselves. Hence, a better path must exist. The availability of new tools and existing drug candidates, along with a culmination of a decade of field-leading science, compelled Dr. Etkin to leave Stanford and found Alto.

Driven to Help Patients Get Better Faster

At Alto, we believe that we can better address mental illness by creating precision medicines with the patient in mind. We aim to improve patient outcomes and increase the likelihood of clinical success by better identifying which patients are likely to respond to our product candidates. Through our AI-driven biomarker platform, built on more than 10 years of data, and our pipeline of clinical stage product candidates, we aim to get transformative therapies to people sooner, so they can get better faster.